I celebrate the birth of Jesus because He is alive! I can think of nothing more incredible than that God became a man and lived among us, and we beheld His glory. He is full of grace and truth! (John 1:18). Jesus is the radiance of God's glory (Hebrews 1:3) and the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15). For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible. (Colossians 1:16). From Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory both now and forever!! (Romans 11:36)

No matter what country you are in, what belief or lack of belief system you participate in, no matter whether you celebrate or not, I hope you all have a end of the year.

I celebrate human beings because they are alive! They are living breathing creatures with great potential. I take this time of the year to focus (even more than normal) on making sure that my fellow human beings are taken care of. I give and do more charity work this time of year for no reason at all except to help and show kindness to others. When I do the charity work and people ask me why I am doing it, I don’t give them pamphlets or give them some ulterior motivated reason. I tell them I do it because, “I care.”

I really don’t care what you call it. Season Greetings, Merry Christmas, Happy Holliday, Merry Xmas, Happy Festivus, Happy Hanukkah, Joyous Kwanzaa, Peaceful Solstice, Happy Yule, Happy New Year, or what ever flavor you enjoy. The really important thing is that we are all human beings and to make this time of year, that much of the world celebrates, all about “just your thing” seems a bit selfish, shallow, and certainly narrow-minded. Looking at all of history, it is true that “no one culture or religion” has a single lock-down on the celebration of this season. I would hope that what ever your beliefs are, that you don’t demean others for calling their celebration what ever they choose. I write this with idea of thinking how many of us do get irritated by this simple thing (myself included) every year at this time.

I for one would like to get rid of this simple little stress in my life and learn not to take it personally. So the next time you are thinking (myself included) about pushing someone on giving they’re greeting in a different way, I hope you think of this. Let’s all just enjoy each other for who we are already.

And while we're at it, let's not limit it to that period of time around the 25th of December - after all, if we're worth celebrating for any reason, we're also worth celebrating at any time.

@Olorin - Christmas (leaving aside for the moment the pagan origins of many of the rituals we observe) is imo validly the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. Just so you know I wasn't trying to threadjack this or anything.

LOL, well actually the origins of almost all of the traditions celebrated this time of year are from some pagan or dead religion/culture. There is very little orginality in the current religions for these celebrations. I still love the fact that the Christmas Tree is a fertility symbol. LOL

And while we're at it, let's not limit it to that period of time around the 25th of December - after all, if we're worth celebrating for any reason, we're also worth celebrating at any time.

It is funny you said that. We were talking on the 25th about how we should do most of our charity work at other times of the year, since so many others do it at this time already. So, I think that is going to be a big shift for us going forward. We keep trying to give more than the years before, hoping we are doing enough. Of course it is never enough, but then again, we are not Buffett or Gates. LOL